During home matches, he sat near the end of press row by himself. When the final horn sounded, he retreated to the elevator, zoomed down to the bottom floor and passed by the Zamboni entrance en route to the Coyotes' dressing room.

He heard the postgame crowd noise and felt a subtle breeze from the ice sneaking into the bowels of the arena.

Bissonnette's identity as a hockey player is no longer clearly defined, and that uncertainty can feed insecurity. Three players whose roles were similar to Bissonnette's died last summer, raising more questions about the role fighting should play in the NHL.

Today's fighters are struggling to preserve their livelihood in the league. That's left some players feeling ostracized from their teams, an outsider among their own kind.

"You don't really feel as much a part of it when you're not playing," Bissonnette said. "Everyone's enjoying and everyone's competed and just earned two points, and you didn't. But they make a conscious effort to make me feel that I'm always part of it. I'm part of the puzzle."

As he approached the room for coach Dave Tippett's postgame address, the only clue of his status as a hockey player was his 6-foot-2 frame.

His complexion was clear, lacking the bruises and cuts that are accessories of his trade. His hands, although scarred, are neat with rounded cuticles hugging the beds of his nails.

"I haven't had them cut in ages," he said.

His custom-tailored Astor & Black suit, suggested by former teammate Wojtek Wolski, with Argyll socks peeking out from his pants looked more in-tune with a boardroom than a hockey rink, but for the majority of the season, this has been Bissonnette's uniform.

For the past few seasons, fighting in the NHL has been on a steady decline. Entering Friday's games, the league is on pace for 549 fights this campaign, 96 fewer than last season and 254 fewer than a decade ago.

Before today's meeting with the Edmonton Oilers, Bissonnette has fought seven times in 27 games. In 2009-10, Bissonnette tallied 19 fights and the year before that in the American Hockey League, Bissonnette fought 28 times.

Hockey minds agree that the act will never truly be purged from the game, but the importance of every regular-season game means that many teams can't afford to dress a player who solely fights.

"There's less fighting just one team's tough guy going out and fighting the other team's tough guy," Tippett said. "The speed of the game, the pace you have to be able to play at, I think, has increased. It's taken some of those players out of the game."

The scrutiny increased after the three deaths -- two to apparent suicides and the other to an accidental overdose. Concrete evidence between these players' roles as fighters and their deaths has never been released.

"You can't jump to that conclusion yet," said Scott Morrison, a hockey analyst with Sportsnet. "Certainly, everybody's radar is on about it. There's no question about it."

Still a teammate

Bissonnette dresses with his teammates and skates in the pregame warm-up regardless of whether he's in the lineup. He carries a unique responsibility among his teammates as the resident DJ who splices a mix of music to be heard before the game.

And when he is a healthy scratch, postgame discussions don't start until he's arrived in the locker room.

Despite those efforts, Bissonnette has still wrestled to achieve a sense of security, hinting that the battle off the ice is tougher than the one on it.

"Now that I'm in the NHL sitting out every other night, yeah, I've been a little depressed this year," he said in February.

Bissonnette has been a healthy scratch for 45 games this season. He's on pace to play in 37 games, the lowest season total in his professional career.

Right before that stretch of 14 games that he sat out in January and February, Bissonnette sought the help of a psychiatrist to help him cope with the mental tug-of-war he was waging to earn playing time and feel part of the group.

"You take it day to day -- you have to take it day to day," Bissonnette said. "It got to the point where I was getting a lot of anxiety, and I had to go talk to (head athletic trainer Jason Serbus) and I said, 'Serbs, I need to get on medication or talk to someone.'"

Bissonnette chose the latter, visiting with a psychiatrist for a one-time, hour-and-a-half session.

"I didn't want to jump on the meds right away because that's an easy way out, right, and that just temporarily treats it," he said.

Medication has also been traced to one of the deaths over the summer. An autopsy report on former Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers fighter Derek Boogaard revealed a mix of alcohol and the painkiller oxycodone in his system. His death was determined an accidental overdose.

"I had to go see a psychiatrist this year because of the amount of sitting out," Bissonnette said. "You're by yourself, up in the press box. You're constantly, 'Am I doing everything I can to be in?' And every time you do play, you play five shifts, critiquing every shift and your mind's just playing tricks on you.

"That's where I can see guys in our situation can start to get off the beaten path and maybe turn to drugs and alcohol as an escape. Personally, I can see why those guys go down that path. Sometimes when you feel like (expletive) , it feels good to go out and get drunk and forget about it. But that's not the way to do it."

Bissonnette said the mental stress is a byproduct of the pressure he puts on himself to evolve into more than a fighter.

"I think I can contribute with a minimal amount of ice time as far as like my five, six minutes," he said. "What's hard about it is you're not getting judged on 20 minutes of a game; you're getting judged on those five shifts. So if you (expletive) up once, you're like, 'Holy (expletive) , man.' The only thing Coach is going to remember is that bad shift I had, especially if you're out the next game and the next game and the next, and it's three weeks and you're on that bad play. It builds up."

Having a professional listen to the pressure and uncertainty surrounding his job has helped, Bissonnette said, and his feelings are not uncommon.

From the best

Marty McSorley, a previous poster boy for enforcing during his 18-year career, was one of a handful players in the 1980s and '90s assigned to protect the game's superstars. The emotional highs and lows of the job are standard.

"Every tough guy has his own emotions to go through," said McSorley, who racked up 3,381 career regular-season penalty minutes. "Some guys suffer anxiety attacks. Some guys, they just hated their job (but) they did it. Some guys were sick to their stomach, and some guys relished it. Everybody's different."

More and more, players are trying to diversify their skill set and make themselves a desired commodity by offering more than fighting in their repertoire.

Vancouver Canucks right winger Dale Weise is in the midst of his first full season in the NHL. Two seasons ago in the AHL, Weise scored 28 goals but is tied on the Canucks with a team-high seven fights this season.

That mix of offensive upside and physicality has enabled Weise to participate in 58 games for the Canucks but during his stint last year in the AHL, he witnessed the separation tough guys can feel playing limited minutes.

"They did a lot of the heavy lifting for us, and they're guys that didn't play a lot," Weise said. "Some nights they were playing two, three shifts and going out and fighting whoever and anyone in the American Hockey League. I hung out with them away from the rink, and they absolutely felt like they weren't apart of the team."

The reasons for that aren't unique to hockey players.

A sense of belonging, contribution and confidence all facilitate self-esteem, said Bettina Lehnert, a psychologist whose private practice is based in Scottsdale. If one of those factors is missing or lacking, self-esteem can diminish.

"For anyone, regardless of what their job is, if all of a sudden they don't have that anymore or they don't feel like their self-worth in that job is as good as it used to be, it's going to affect them," Lehnert said.

Bissonnette earned some of that self-worth back when he re-entered the lineup on Feb.16 against the Los Angeles Kings. He played 8:31, taking nine shifts and fighting with Kevin Westgarth.

"It changed my world around for the last month," Bissonnette said at the time. "It's been a month and a week. Yeah, it's good."

After that contest, Bissonnette played in six more games before sitting out. With the Coyotes in the midst of a crucial four-game road trip, Bissonnette has already participated in the first two games.

It will be up to the Coyotes coaching staff to determine his shelf life in the lineup and whether he will be able to execute a part in the team's final chase for a playoff spot.

"I felt that the more I was playing and the more games in a row I was playing, I was getting comfortable out there," Bissonnette said. "I wasn't nervous. So it was good. It was fun. I hope it continues."

Fewer fights in the NHL

The number of fights during the past four seasons has decreased as teams continue to try to find ways to win.